The dispatching of vehicles is an important function within a modern transportation management. The dispatching function typically sends vehicles from one location to another assigned location. The first location is a point of origin location. The other assigned location is a destination. In the dispatch environment, the original location (e.g., point of origin) is typically a known location, such as of a base of operations. Destinations are typically sites at which the vehicle is expected to engage in some activity.
Numerous commercial and industrial functions can characterize such activity. For instance, the vehicle can be a truck, dispatched from a base of operations yard at which it is loaded with a cargo, to a destination such as a work site, at which the cargo will be unloaded. Thus, a destination of a dispatched vehicle typically represents a job site (e.g., a location at which some work is occurring) at which the vehicle will execute a function characteristic of the purpose (e.g., mission) for which it was dispatched.
The base of operations of a dispatched vehicle sometimes represents a location such as a facility at which the vehicle is readied for its mission. However, the original location of a vehicle with respect to a particular destination can also be a current location of a particular vehicle, which can differ from its base of operations. For example, a vehicle that has previously been dispatched to its current location can be dispatched again from that current location to a subsequent destination.
Modern dispatching operations for sending a fleet vehicle to a job site can be facilitated by a computer running a dispatching oriented software application (e.g., a dispatching package). Information about the geographic location (e.g., locational information), such as geographic coordinates of a job site can be useful to the functionality of such dispatch packages. Some dispatching packages however lack the ability to supply or send geographical coordinates of a work site to a vehicle being dispatched.
Further, while some dispatching packages do have some geo-locational information promulgating capability, they may have difficulty resolving locational information such as similar addresses. For example, in attempting to inform a vehicle being dispatched of its destination, such a dispatching application may confuse addresses such as “123 Main Street” and “123 Main Road,” or the addresses “5678 South Highway 9” and “5678 S. Heigh Way No. 9.” Another problem confronting such dispatching practices is that, when the job site to which a vehicle is to be dispatched is a construction site, addresses, even roads themselves, may not yet exist. Address promulgation in this case is useless.
In some instances, a road itself may constitute the construction project. In the case of road construction, even promulgating a fixed geographical position of the job site to a vehicle being dispatched can be extraordinarily difficult. For instance, if a cement mixer and/or an aggregate-carrying dump truck is/are being dispatched to deliver concrete/aggregate for a road being built, the actual job site for these vehicles is the site at which their loads are delivered and dispensed from the vehicles into the roadbed under construction.
Typically however, such vehicles can be among a plurality of other such vehicles similarly loaded. Thus, before arrival at their job site, these vehicles may have to queue up with a number of others, all waiting to dispense their loads. How long they stand in queue before they arrive at their actual job site can depend, among other things, on the speed and efficiency of the job site road crew. The cement mixer's concrete load is perishable however, with fixed times of mixing, typically measured in drum turns at a given drum speed and direction, as delineated in engineering specifications for a particular job or conditions and enforced by on-site inspectors. Economic loss is sustained if the load perishes.
Some dispatching packages may use locational information supplied from a dispatched vehicle to attempt to determine the arrival of a dispatched vehicle at a job site or into a region proximate to the job site. For instance, a dispatched vehicle can deploy position determination receiver device for reception of signals from the Global PositioningSystem (GPS, e.g., a collection of satellites, launched and managed by the U.S. Air Force, for broadcast distribution of radio signals containing information from which position on earth can be determined), hereinafter referred to as a GPS device, or “GPS.” The GPS can determine the geographic position of the vehicle, such that the driver or other vehicle operator can “know” or have locational information available upon the vehicle's arrival at or departure from a job site or a region proximate to it. In response to obtaining this locational information, the GPS can wirelessly notify (e.g., pass the locational information to) a dispatch application.
However, if the dispatched vehicle cannot be informed of locational information such as the geographic position of the job site beforehand, the GPS lacks the ability to signal or alert the dispatch application of arrival at or proximity of the dispatched vehicle to the job site. The conventional solution to this shortcoming is for the driver or another operator to have to first realize that the dispatched vehicle has arrived at or is proximate to the job site, and then second, to take some positive action to notify or signal the dispatch application of that fact.
This conventional solution can be problematic, because the vehicle operator may not readily recognize the precise arrival or coming into proximity, especially for instance if the operator is unfamiliar with the area. The conventional solution can also be problematic because a vehicle operator can fail to timely take the positive notification or signaling action. In the case of a vehicle waiting in queue prior to arrival at the job site, the operator may lack sufficient information to correctly apprise the dispatch application of the vehicle's arrival. Thus the dispatch application may not be notified of the correct job site arrival/departure time, or worse, may not be notified of the arrival/departure at all.
For a vehicle waiting in queue with a perishable load, arrival notification can be crucial to avert economic loss associated with the load perishing, and/or to shift responsibility for the economic loss to a responsible party. For example, if the concrete load of a cement mixer perishes while the vehicle waits, delayed in queue prior to arrival at the vehicle's particular job site, and the delay in queue is the fault of a contractor's inefficient road crew, the dispatch application without notification of arrival lacks a way to “captures the contractor's true responsibility for the economic loss.
Thus, the conventional art can be problematic because not all dispatching applications can promulgate adequate locational information to a vehicle being dispatched. Dispatching applications which do have such capability may have difficulty resolving locational information such as addresses, and where addresses do not exist, retain the inability to convey some locational information. Where roads are themselves under construction, a precise arrival at or in proximity to a job site can be difficult to ascertain. Further, if geographic coordinates of a job site are not supplied before a vehicle is dispatched, even sophisticated conventional solutions such as GPS can be inadequate to ascertain job site arrival.
Conventional solutions can also be problematic because they may rely on operator action to notify a dispatch application of arrival, yet the operator may fail to realize that arrival has occurred and/or may fail to take the appropriate action. A dispatch application may thus not be informed of arrival/departure of a dispatched vehicle. Where a dispatch application is not informed of arrival/departure of a dispatched vehicle, unrecoverable economic loss may occur.